


The Tower.

by Werepirechick



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Blood and Gore, Character Study, Dark, Dysfunctional Family, Dysfunctional Relationships, Family Drama, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Growing Up, Introspection, Murder, Post-War, and he's not scared to do it, because hot damn this is how it should have gone, donnie knows what's gotta be done, it's murder time naughty children, spoilers for The Heart of Evil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-10-10 15:26:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10440894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Werepirechick/pseuds/Werepirechick
Summary: “This is the end for you,” Donnie says, voice tone dropping to a level Leo has never heard from his brother before. And before Leo can react further, cry out again to remind him who their father raised them to be-Donnie’s naginata blade slices through Don Vizioso’s neck flesh, and sends an arc of red spraying into the air.





	1. The Tower.

**Author's Note:**

> "The Tower shows a tall tower pitched atop a craggy mountain. Lightning strikes and flames burst from the building’s windows. People are seen to be leaping from the tower in desperation, wanting to flee such destruction and turmoil. The Tower signifies darkness and destruction on a physical scale, as opposed to a spiritual scale. The Tower itself represents ambitions built on false premises. The lightning bolt breaks down existing forms in order to make room for new ones. It represents a sudden, momentary glimpse of truth, a flash of inspiration that breaks down structures of ignorance and false reasoning."

 

 

“This is the _end_ for you _,_ ” Donnie says, voice tone dropping to a level Leo has never heard from his brother before. And before Leo can react further, cry out again to remind him who their father raised them to be-

Donnie’s naginata blade slices through Don Vizioso’s neck flesh, and sends an arc of red spraying into the air.

There’s a split second pause, every other fighter in the room freezing as the Don gurgles and thrashes. Then, as the enormous man slides sideways, free of Donnie’s hold, the other two men unfreeze. The twin gangsters run from the room, cries of horror following their retreat.

And Leo is left alone, staring at his brother and the blood dripping from Donnie’s blade.

Don Vizioso is growing weak, paling as the gaping hole in his neck reddens and widens. His limbs flail frantically, hands pressing uselessly against the slash in his flesh. Blood streams onto the floor, and it turns the area closest to the Don scarlet.

It’s another few beats of silence from Donnie and Leo, before the man’s chest finally stops rising and falling. Then there’s nothing but stillness, and though Leo has seen many things, the sight before him horrifies him more than almost all of them.

Leo swallows thickly, and his swords droop towards the ground as he straightens slowly. Donnie is standing sentry like, staring down at the man he’s just killed. The only sign he’s not stone is his heavy breathing.

Then, Donnie bends, prying the canister from Vizioso’s limp hand. Leo watches his brother carefully examine it for breaks, and then sees him nod satisfactorily. Donnie then whips his staff to the side, and the worst of the blood flies off. Spattering on the floor, with most of the spots disappearing into the pool of red from Vizioso.

Donnie sheathes his naginata blade, as though it’s not still stained bright red, and slings his staff back across his shell. When he turns around to face Leo, Leo isn’t sure what to make of the blank, emotionless look his brother has.

“How could you,” Leo finally manages to say, deeply horrified by his brother and the deed he’s done. “Donnie, _how could you?”_

“How could I what?” Donnie says, and while his tone is different now, Leo can still hear hints of the one from before. The one he’d used as he’d killed. Donnie tilts his head, and he glances back at the dead man on the floor. “How could I solve a real and serious threat to our lives?”

“How could you kill him?!” Leo exclaims. “We didn’t need to, we could have-”

“Could have _what,_ Leo?” Donnie asks sharply, and Leo’s mouth snaps shut at the sudden change in his brother. Donnie never reacted like this to anyone, to _anything,_ and certainly not to _Leo_.

Leo rallies despite his pause, and does his best not to look at the corpse on the floor. The smell of iron and salt is making him feel sick as it fills the air. “We could have sent him to jail, given him over to the police and been done with this. We could have done that, and kept him _alive._ ”

“Sure, we could have sent him to jail,” Donnie says, eyes narrowed. The light is affecting his irises, and the red of his eyes seems shades darker than they usually are. “But how long would he have stayed there, Leo? What guarantee do we have he wouldn’t have gotten right back out, and come back to try killing us _again?”_

Leo darts a glance, unwillingly, at the Don’s pale face. His neck gapes in the weak light of the room, and Leo’s stomach turns. He forces his eyes back to Donnie, and scowls at his brother. “The legal system would have taken care of things.”

“Leo, no they wouldn’t have,” Donnie says, voice low. He turns the canister in his hands, staring down at the shriveled flesh inside it. “Don Vizioso was second only to the Foot. Second only to the Shredder, in terms of political power. He wouldn’t have been in jail for more than a few weeks, a few months if we were lucky. Criminals don’t just give up and disappear like they do in stories, Leo. And our country’s law system is corrupt enough to let them do pretty much whatever they want, for the right price.”

Leo’s grip on his swords tighten again, and he narrows his eyes at Donnie. How dare his brother do this? How dare he go against everything their father taught them? “Our father wouldn’t have wanted this, Donnie,” Leo says, and he sees the slight twitch to Donnie’s posture. “This goes against everything he believed in. Everything we’ve lived by our whole lives.”

“And look where that got us, where it got _him,”_ Donnie snaps, hands tightening around the canister. His dark red irises flick up to bore into Leo’s blue ones, and there’s an anger there that Leo’s never seen in his brother before.

“Our father is dead for following the bushido code, Leo,” Donnie continues, shoulders straightening as he draws himself up to his full height. “He died because he couldn’t ever do what needed doing, and I don’t plan to let us keep making those mistakes.”

Leo’s lips curl back at his brother’s insult to their father. _How dare he?_ “Do you _hear_ yourself Donnie? Have you completely forgotten who you are?”

“And who is that?” Donnie asks, voice tight. “Who am I, Leo?”

Leo draws himself up like Donnie has, and finds himself not even reaching his brother’s nose. There’s a room between them, but Donnie _looms_ , and for a split second, Leo sees what their enemies probably always see when they look at his brother.

Something inhuman. Something deadly.

“You’re not this,” Leo says, firm and commanding. “Our father taught you better than to be someone like _this.”_

Donnie looks at Leo for a long moment, and then says, “Then I guess you don’t know me very well at all, Leo.”

Leo’s grip on his swords make them shake, and he’s caught between outrage and horror as Donnie calmly crosses the room to the windows. Donnie pulls the blinds apart enough to see the outside world, and neon green light flashes over his scales as he does. It illuminates his eyes in a way that looks wrong, and the look Donnie turns on Leo only makes the feeling of wrongness persist.

“Do you know _why_ I killed him, Leo?” Donnie asks suddenly, before Leo can manage to say anything to his previous statement. “You said earlier you didn’t know what was between me and him.”

Leo glowers at his brother, and can only respond with a tight, _“No,_ I don’t know why, Donnie.”

Donnie doesn’t seem fazed by Leo’s ground out words, and turns back towards the continuing fire fight outside. “Because, he tried to kill me. And I know lots of people have, but that time was different,” Donnie’s eyes narrow again, and darken further. “And you didn’t even know, did you? That he tied me up and planned to vivisect me right in front of Mondo. Who, might I remind you, is much younger than us both. He tried to kill me, and he wanted to make a show of it.”

“So?” Leo asks. He’s unwilling to step away from the doorway, which he’s half guarding still, and unwilling to step towards his brother. He’s not sure exactly why, but something holds him back. “Lots of people have done that to us. Lots of times, too. Why do you care so much about that one time?”

“I don’t know,” Donnie replies, still calm and eerie. “Maybe it was just the straw that broke the camel’s back, or maybe because it was something like a wakeup call.” Donnie turns his head back towards Leo, and doesn’t give away any emotions in his expression. “Don Vizioso wasn’t just the second strongest crime boss in New York. He was also the one who hated mutants the most, and was willing to do anything to see us dead. The world isn’t like the stories our father told us, the bad guys won’t spare us because we spare them. We have to grow up some time, and make decisions about how we’re going to keep surviving in a world that wants us gone.

“Do you know what’s happening out there?” Donnie asks, nodding his head towards the flickering, flashing bursts of light from outside. “A war. A war being fought with weapons specifically designed to kill mutants. And this man? He spent a lot of time and resources creating those weapons, and I doubt he would have tucked them away to gather dust. There wasn’t any other way I could ensure he wouldn’t ever get the chance again to use those against us. Don’t fault me for keeping our family safe, Leo.”

Leo can’t believe his ears. He can’t believe that after all this time, after everything they’ve lost, his brother is throwing aside everything their father taught them. Leo squares his shoulders, intent on channeling the tone and power of his position as their Sensei. “This is wrong. What you did was _wrong,_ Donnie. There’s no way around that you just _killed_ someone, and that we could have let him live.”

“Maybe it’s wrong,” Donnie says, thoughtful and still eerie. “But not everything is as black and white as your cartoons make it, Leo. Morality isn’t as simple as Sensei taught us. A ninja does what they have to, to keep their clan safe and protected. What I just did made sure that Don Vizioso’s power and reach wouldn’t ever hurt us again, and I’m sorry, but I don’t feel bad for killing him. Not if it means we get to live another day without someone pointing a _gun_ at our heads.”

Leo is at a loss, because he hears in Donnie’s voice that he _means_ those things. Donnie, who has always been kind, and giving, and the last person to give up hope for a better solution. Not this… cold person, standing with blood on his hands, and not caring at all.

“This is wrong,” Leo says again, and though he tries, he can’t muster the same conviction he’d had a moment ago. He’s supposed to be his brother’s master, but Leo can feel that he’s lost control of Donnie completely. And that maybe, he never had that control to begin with.

“Maybe,” Donnie says, stepping away from the window, and moving towards the door. As he passes Leo, cradling the dead heart of the man that’d taken their father from them, Donnie gives Leo a look. It’s an even, steady look, and too dark to be one Leo recognizes.

“Maybe it was wrong,” Donnie says, still looking Leo dead in the eye. “But we can’t always be the heroes, Leo.”

And Leo looks up- _up, because Donnie towers over him-_ and can’t say anything as his brother keeps walking. Donnie leaves the room, exiting out into the halls of the hotel, and then Leo is alone.

He doesn’t want to, but he looks back at Vizioso one last time. The man’s death pale face shines in the flashing lights from outside, and Leo can barely tear his gaze from the exposed insides of his throat. The size of the gash, how it yawns and goes nearly to the spine, shows how little Donnie had been holding back. How much he’d really wanted the human _dead._

Leo shudders, feeling lost and out of his depth, and goes to follow his brother. Donnie’s words echo in his mind, and Leo wishes he knew what his father would have said in response.

 

 


	2. And the lightning that strikes it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a sequel, because this donnie's voice is quite loud in my head.

 

 

Donnie knows there’s tenseness, between him and Leo, after he kills Vizioso. He feels it in the glances his brother gives him, and sees the wide birth he’s granted when they’re in a room together. He hears it in the tone Leo addresses him with during training, and notices in the light pats on his shoulder in the rare moments Leo will touch him.

And.

Donnie doesn’t care.

His weapon is clean again, blade sheathed until he needs it once more. The Don’s body has long since been removed from the hotel, carted off to a morgue and then a gravesite. Said hotel has long since been closed down; due to the amount of damage they’d done to it during the fight with Kravaxas.

Donnie’s hands have been scrubbed clean, and he’s continued his nightly life with his friends and family.

He doesn’t care that Leo still looks at him. Still _looks_ at him, soft horror and deep confusion in each of those looks.

He doesn’t care that sometimes his hands will clench suddenly, and remember the sensation of slicing through Vizioso’s throat. He’s killed before _, oh has he killed,_ but never with such intention. Not against an ordinary human, as powerful the Don might have been with money and sway.

He doesn’t care that Leo’s words of their father’s disappointment ring in his ears, sometimes. His father always found something in him to be disappointed about, as concealed and quiet he kept that disappointment.

Donnie doesn’t care. He can’t.

Because Donnie knows, he _knows_ , for sure that there’s one less threat to his family. One less thing to wake up to every evening and wonder if that’s what will finally get them, what will finally take one of his brothers or friends from him. From all of them. The way the Shredder took his father.

Donnie’s anger simmers and settles, quiet and calm again. It’s still there, soft and insidious, just beneath his other thoughts. But it’s silent, now that he’s removed at least one of his waking and sleeping nightmares from his life.

Leo’s words though, to not lose sight of himself, still come back to him on occasion. Especially when Donnie sees his brother see him, and he looks the other way. Or leaves the room completely.

They don’t bring shame or guilt to his mind, though. They bring a resignation of sorts, and a distant feeling of wonder.

Just who does his brother think he is?

After their wars, their losses, the endless months of fighting, who does Leo think Donnie to be?

Leo knew the path they would have to take, even when they were kids, young and naïve to what the world really was. Their father had told them himself that there would always be adversity against them. Always someone looking to harm them in some way. They were always going to have to make hard decisions, and as their leader, Leo should have known that better than anyone.

It seemed though, that he didn’t. And perhaps their father hadn’t as well.

Because for all his warnings, Splinter had never actually _made_ those hard decisions. Not like Donnie has. Always preaching for the conservation of life, the sparing of enemy lives. He tried to teach them to act with deft, but soft hands. And those things still confuse Donnie, for their contradictions and impracticality, especially now that they’ve moved on. Become independent of their guardian’s watchful eye.

Because Splinter is dead, and his ideals led him to that death.

Ideals are for children, in Donnie’s opinion. The wishful hopes of young minds that don’t know just how harsh the world truly is.

Some ideals are acceptable, Donnie supposes, but most are just not realistic. Not for them. Never for them. Not in a world that will look at them, scream _monster,_ and aim a weapon at them in response. In fear.

Donnie has always known those things, that no one would ever accept them. That there was only ever going to be the slimmest, slightest chance that someone would look at his family, and not want to kill them all.

After seeing his father killed three times over, fought more battles he cares to remember, and struggled for three years running to keep his brothers alive and whole- Donnie is suspicious of every shadow, of every potential ally, and of every chance they take. Fate has never been kind to them, but these last months have been particularly hard. Their father is gone, and while Donnie doesn’t miss certain aspects of their lives before, he misses the safety of having a guardian. Of knowing that when things came down to the line, his father’s sword would protect them.

There isn’t anyone but them now, and their father’s sword gathers dust in the dojo. Donnie has, and will continue, to see that no one else’s weapons join that sword in disuse.

Days go by, and the newspapers stop running stories of a murdered gang lord. Leo keeps hiding from Donnie; eyes skimming to the side, and posture becoming defensive, every time they meet. Donnie keeps not caring.

Donnie loves his brother, loved his father, but he will never let their remaining family die for their ideals and morals.

Morality isn’t simple as their father taught them it was. It’s a mess of grey shades everywhere, darkening and lightening depending on who or what is aiming a threat at them that night. It will never be easy to understand and wield, and Donnie knows that well now days.

Maybe, because they say nothing of what Donnie has done, Raph and Mikey agree. That there is a point where you either have to take the chance of further, and more grievous, harm in the future, or put a permanent end to it. Or maybe they’ve just got enough sense and respect to let Donnie do what needs to be done, and not continue to cling to how things used to be.

Mikey treats Donnie no different than he always has, and Raph’s curt attitude never changes. It seems, whatever their thoughts on Donnie’s bloodied hands are, they won’t be voicing them to him.

Leo is the only one who skirts Donnie’s presence, the only one who still darts glances at his staff during training. It seems hypocritical, considering that Donnie hadn’t even flinched when Leo had dropped the mask of a man he’d murdered, right in front of them all. Leo’s swords remain what they’ve always been to Donnie; tools, to protect and defend their family with. Such was what the Shredder’s death had been.

Leo has done the same thing as Donnie, killing in the name of preserving their family’s lives. Why he’s so upset about Don Vizioso, Donnie can’t tell.

And, he still doesn’t care.

_(Or maybe he does, and it hurts a little more every time his brother looks at him like he’s seeing a stranger, and watches him like one too._

_But Donnie has never shied from doing what needed doing, and has rarely faltered when faced with a task upon which his family depended. He won’t start now. Not even for this.)_

Donnie’s hands are clean, but sometimes feel dirty, and he doesn’t care. They’ve been dirty for a long time now, years now, and he just needs to wash a little more. Not think about himself a little harder, and focus on continuing to reinforce the lair’s defenses with a bit more concentration.

Leo keeps looking away from Donnie, and Donnie keeps not caring. Because, having Leo here to give him those annoying _(hurtful)_ looks is better than the alternative.

There’s a stone, a large stone, one that Donnie carved with his own tools and hands, and it sits somewhere far from New York. Donnie knows its exact placement, and measurements, down to the square inch. He knows that one day another stone will join it, maybe more than just one, maybe two, or three, or god forbid _four,_ but not for a long time. Not while he still breathes.

Having Leo here to disapprove of Donnie’s choices is better than not having him here at all. It always will be, no matter how many looks and glances his brother gives him that land on Donnie’s scales and- _(hurt)-_ rankle his temper.

The morals that Leo clings to are the remaining pieces of their father, and he continues trying to lead their family by them. Donnie can feel that the morals have little to no effect on him anymore, and the same can be said for his other brothers.

They loved their father, but they won’t die for him. Not now, not when they’re finally free of war and ready to try living outside it. Not when Splinter is months dead, and now only controlling how their family runs through Leo’s weakening voice.

Donnie’s blade is clean and sheathed, ready for when he next needs it. And he will, he knows he will. He always will. And he’ll use it again and again, and not regret it even once.

Leo keeps giving him looks, and Donnie lets him. After all, better he be here to give them, than to be lying underground by their father’s side.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> *deep breath* "god i hate canon."
> 
> also, me @ leo: grow the hell up. morality isn't simple, and sometimes you have to make hard choices to make sure none of you are dead at the end of the day. basing your choices off a bunk moral code straight from cartoons will get you and your family dead.
> 
> "Remember who you are!" - shut up. you don't know who donnie even is, and probably never did. to quote a friend of mine, who's salt is beautiful and gives me life: 
> 
> "Like, okay, Leo. Who is Donnie to you? We haven’t seen you interact outside of you lecturing him in three seasons. Things Donnie has done, at the age of approximately 17 and a half: killed a lot of kraang. killed a lot of triceratons. made a lot of murder war machines. watched his father be brutally murdered in front of him three years running. lived with a mutant in his lab who wants to hurt him, that he can’t cure, while his brothers laughed at him. probably not slept longer than 4 hours a night on average. like, yeah, I’m going to make a wild guess that Donnie? Donnie is probably less stable than he should be. "
> 
> my friend tea gets this shit, and i hope the folks who read this get it to.
> 
> so far season five hasn't done anything other than fuel my salt engine, so buckle down for more fics like this in the future.


End file.
